Saturday, October 20, 2012

Headed Uptown in the Bitcoin Limousine

Trace Mayer sends along this video which announces that A Class Limousine in New York City is accepting bitcoins for payment. Though, I doubt there are going to be many who pay for rides with bitcoins, at the present time.

Be sure to read the backstory decision by A Class Limo to use bitcoins, here.

Of note: The ability to pay by bitcoin via smartphone is making it much closer to a money. BUT, the key still remains the number of people who will accept bitcoins in payment. For something to become a medium of exchange, it must have near universal acceptance as money, within a region. Bitcoin isn't there yet, by far. It may get there as totalitarian regulations make buyers and sellers want to keep their anonymity on more and more transactions (which bitcoin can provide), but it isn't there yet.

Below is a fascinating video by Bit-Pay. It's aimed at merchants, but it is worth viewing to get a sense for the advantages for merchants using bitcoins versus credit and debit cards.

Very cool! Only a matter of time until Bitcoin pops up in more and more places. The ability to transfer any amount of money anywhere, to anyone, whenever you wish, with no fee, and nobody able to stop it? This has to be the easiest trend in the world to predict.

I actually recently met with one of the founders of bitpay. They are doing some really cool things to make bitcoin really easy to use for merchants with really no downside. One of their best features is that they can do instant conversions to usd/euro at the point of sale. So even if bitcoin value is volatile, it doesn't matter for the merchant, they can choose to cash out instantly in dollars, all at a better rate than what credit card companies charge.